One of my many Blooks is "Song of the Peach Tree Spring" by Wang Wei (8th century) A very enigmatic poem that can have multiple meanings.
A fisherman sails up a river, wandering, and sees a few huts amid the cherry blossoms on the river bank, very secluded. It turns out that this is a little village of people who have dropped out of time, secluded from the world. A small paradise. The fisherman is greeted well but finally must leave. He seeks to leave a trail as he retraces his steps but after returning home and telling of his find neither he nor any other is able to find the way back. Yet a touch of hope at the end, with the suggestion that perhaps any river will take us back, who knows which one.
My blook includes two translations as poetry, one prose version, some analysis and a few biographical details of Wang Wei.
One page from my Blook:-
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
SW-User
Here is the poem, which I find engrossing. Not least because written first in Chinese pictograms, leaving each translator with the experience of their own mind/heart in order to give birth to new words. I wonder what I would make of it if I learnt the pictograms and how understanding would morph and evolve with increasing knowledge/experience. The Word as text, and the Living Word
This translation is by G. W. Robinson and Arthur Cooper, and is found in one of Penguin's little black books, "Three Tang Dynasty Poets".
A fisherman sailed up a river he loved spring in the hills
On both banks peach blossom closed over the farther reaches
He sat and looked at the red trees not knowing how far he was
And he neared the head of the green stream seeing no one
A gap in the hills, a way through twists and turns at first
Then hills gave on to a vastness of level land all round
From far away all seemed trees up to the clouds
He approached, and there were many houses among flowers and bamboos
Foresters meeting would exchange names from Han times
And the people had not altered the Ch’in style of their clothes
They had all lived near the head of Wuling River
And now cultivated their rice and gardens out of the world
Bright moon and under the pines outside their windows peace
Sun up and among the clouds fowls and dogs call
Amazed to hear of the world’s intruder all vied to see him
And take him home and ask him about his country and place
At first light in the alleys they swept the flowers from their gates
At dusk fishermen and woodmen came in on the stream
They had first come here for refuge from the world
And then had become immortals and never returned.
Who, clasped there in the hills, would know of the world of men?
And whoever might gaze from the world would make out only clouds and hills
The fisherman did not suspect that paradise is hard to find
And his earthy spirit lived on and he thought of his own country
So he left that seclusion not reckoning the barriers of mountain and stream
To take leave at home and then return for as long as it might please him.
He was sure of his way there could never go wrong
How should he know that peaks and valleys can so soon change?
When the time came he simply remembered having gone deep into the hills
But how many green streams lead into cloud-high woods –
When spring comes, everywhere there are peach blossom streams
No one can tell which may be the spring of paradise.
